'Professor T' Recap: Season 5 Episode 2

Professor T airs Sundays at 7:00 pm and is available to stream via the PBS app and wttw.com. Recap the previous episode.
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Adelaide has finally woken after being rushed to the hospital from a plane flight ending her world tour. Her sister, Zelda, and longtime friend, the dean, have returned from their honeymoon to see Adelaide, who also wants to see her beloved dog Kafka. Miss Snares has been watching the dog in everyone’s absence, and sneaks him into the hospital in a picnic basket. He escapes to roam the halls but eventually finds his way back to Adelaide’s room while she awaits test results. 

Meanwhile, Dan goes on a date with Leonie, the woman he rescued from an angry argument at a bar. Chloe happens to be at the same restaurant at the same time, and has a startling realization when Leonie’s dad strangely comes in to pick her up at the end of dinner: he’s Chester Vass, currently out on probation for armed robbery and part of a major crime family. 

Chloe reluctantly tells Maiya this instead of Dan. Maiya warns Dan, who had no idea. He’s mad that Chloe didn’t come to him directly, but when Leonie texts for another date he responds that he’s busy.

Chloe and Dan have work to occupy them. A fundraising boxing match took place between Cambridge University’s Blue Gloves and a club in the town. The Blue Gloves’ Rhys Gibson, a scion of a wealthy family, had been undefeated for 27 fights. But the town’s Joe Steele bested him. Rhys and two other Blue Gloves accosted Joe late at night outside the Black Boar pub and beat him up, accusing him of bribing the referee.

Eyewitnesses saw the attack and reported it to the police, naming Rhys as a perpetrator. But neither Joe nor his father and coach Frank will cooperate with the police, despite a previous similar incident between the university and town. And Rhys denies involvement to Dan.

So Dan asks the professor about Rhys. The professor admitted Rhys to Cambridge, having conducted both his and his fiancée Hana McBride’s entry interviews on the same day. Rhys was somewhat entitled; Hana, an orphan whose brother Cormac promised their dying mother to support his sister, was more impressive. Cormac works in order to financially support Hana, and is the coach of the Blue Gloves.

Then a historic trophy is stolen from the Blue Gloves. An officer heard students organizing a fight near the Black Boar, so Dan heads there – and runs into Joe, who’s carrying a duffel bag but refuses to open it without a warrant for Dan, who suspects he stole the trophy. A minute later, Dan rounds a corner to see someone doing CPR on Rhys, who is soon pronounced dead from blunt force trauma to the head. A smashed champagne bottle nearby is the likely murder weapon. Rhys’ wallet is found, full, near trash cans – it wasn’t a robbery.

Joe and his father are arrested, and Dan opens Joe’s bag to find the stolen trophy. Both Joe and Frank refuse to answer any questions. One of Rhys’ housemates says they saw him leaving with a bottle of champagne.

The Blue Gloves assume, like the police, that Joe killed Rhys. They want revenge. Cormac and Hana talk them down, as a student snaps photos that he later shares with the police. 

The professor wants to help with the case since he is the reason Rhys was at Cambridge, even as Maiya wonders if he shouldn’t be with his mother at the hospital. He has spent some time with Adelaide, receiving the advice that Dr. Goldberg is good for him – who has herself visited Adelaide, gifting her a shawl. 

Frank breaks his silence to announce that he killed Rhys. He resented the privilege of Rhys, who knew he could attack Joe and not face consequences. So when he learned Joe stole the trophy, he told him to return it. But he disconnected the motor on Joe’s car and went himself to meet Rhys, who swung the champagne bottle at him. Frank grabbed it and retaliated. He didn’t mean to kill him; it was self-defense. 

The professor says this is all a lie. In bodycam footage of the Steeles’ arrests, Frank looks surprised when Dan finds the trophy in Joe’s bag – he didn’t know Joe had stolen it. 

The professor is called away from the investigation to see his mother. Zelda believes she is deteriorating. 

By the time he arrives, Zelda has received Adelaide’s test results: her heart is weak, and she has hours left to live. She wouldn’t survive surgery.

Zelda tries to avoid telling Adelaide her prognosis, but she guesses it by everyone’s presence and somber moods. She wants Miss Snares to become Kafka’s owner, and makes Zelda promise to look after the professor.

This reminds the professor of Hana’s mention in her college entry interview of her brother’s promise to their dying mother to protect her. The professor goes back through evidence he has seen. Hana is a reporter for the student news network, and footage of her on the night of the fight between Rhys and Joe shows that she surreptitiously poured out a glass of champagne Rhys got for her. Photos from when she and Cormac calmed down the Blue Gloves the next day show that she had removed her engagement ring and that Cormac has a tattoo of a peacock feather, a sign of the Catholic church; Hana wears a cross necklace.

The professor guesses that Hana was pregnant and that she told Rhys, who then cut off their engagement because she wouldn’t get an abortion. The forensics team has reconstructed the champagne bottle and lifted a fingerprint from it: Hana’s. She admits to the police that the professor is right – but she has an alibi. She was at the boxing club when Rhys was killed, as both her brother and CCTV corroborate. 

But Cormac doesn’t have the same alibi – while Hana says he was there at the time, she’s lying. He found out about the pregnancy and that Rhys was heading out to celebrate his freedom from the engagement – hence the champagne – and went to confront him. Rhys took out his wallet and asked Cormac how much it would cost to make it all go away. Cormac exploded in rage and hit him with the bottle, accidentally killing him in order to protect his sister.

Back at the hospital, the professor sits beside his mother. He holds her hand as she dies.